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Speculative Radicalism and the Planetary Topics By Title Page “Why not pitch the whole enterprise at the highest level possible?”: Speculative Radicalism and the Planetary Topics by Nicholas L. Stefanski BA, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2005 JD, University of Connecticut School of Law, 2009 MA, University of Pittsburgh, 2015 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2020 Committee Page UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Nicholas L. Stefanski It was defended on April 24, 2020 and approved by David L. Marshall, Associate Professor, Department of Communication Calum Matheson, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Annette Vee, Associate Professor, Department of English Dissertation Director: Brenton J. Malin, Associate Professor, Department of Communication ii Copyright © by Nicholas Lawrence Stefanski 2020 iii Abstract “Why not pitch the whole enterprise at the highest level possible?”: Speculative Radicalism and the Planetary Topics Nicholas Lawrence Stefanski, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2020 This dissertation problematizes the hegemony of “critique” within the humanities in general and communication studies in particular. I argue that critique in the current mode, a reading and engagement practice that valorizes suspicion and purports to unmask allegedly concealed ideologies, does not equip scholars or students with the imaginative capacity necessary to confront the problems of the Anthropocene. Drawing upon the resources of speculative realism and speculative fiction, I propose speculative radicalism as an alternative practice. Speculative radicalism is an affirmative mode of reading, engagement, and theorizing that encourages the imagining of alternative future ways of living and modes of production, proceeding stepwise from a posited point of difference, or “novum.” Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy is offered as a model of invention in the speculative radicalist mode. With the goal of elaborating how speculative radicalism operates in this context, I repurpose the rhetorical topics of invention, or topoi. I argue that to fully appreciate the Mars Trilogy, one must understand that its applicable topics are, in fact, the planetary features of Mars itself: its gravity, landforms, and more. I develop and analyze this list of the planetary topics in the context of the Trilogy. In addition, I use the planetary topics to reevaluate established critical readings of the strategy video game series Sid Meier’s Civilization, as well as Robert Zubrin’s nonfiction space advocacy monograph The Case for Mars. I conclude that a reading of these iv artifacts informed by the planetary topics can yield more nuanced judgements than those produced by the prevailing style of academic critique; furthermore, this conclusion points the way toward the development of a speculative radicalist mode of engagement and imagination that is capable of meeting the challenges of the Anthropocene. v Table of Contents Preface ............................................................................................................................................ x 1.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 2.0 “A science fiction novel we all co-write together”: Speculative Radicalism as Post- critique ......................................................................................................................................... 14 2.1 The Ontology of Critique ............................................................................................. 17 2.2 The Critique of Ontology ............................................................................................. 23 2.3 Speculative Radicalism ................................................................................................ 30 3.0 “Historical analogy is the last refuge of people who can’t grasp the current situation”: The Planetary Topics of the Mars Trilogy ............................................................ 45 3.1 Cognitive Estrangement and the Novum ................................................................... 45 3.2 The Topics of the Mars Trilogy ................................................................................... 49 3.3 From the Classical to the Planetary Topics ............................................................... 53 3.4 Planetary Topics in the Mars Trilogy ......................................................................... 70 3.4.1 Gravity ................................................................................................................72 3.4.2 Atmosphere (Pressure and Composition) ........................................................76 3.4.3 Water ...................................................................................................................79 3.4.4 Weather and Climate .........................................................................................81 3.4.5 Insolation and Albedo ........................................................................................82 3.4.6 Celestial and Temporal Cycles ..........................................................................83 3.4.7 Vulcanism & Magnetosphere ............................................................................85 3.4.8 Regolith ...............................................................................................................87 vi 3.4.9 Indigenous Life ...................................................................................................89 3.4.10 Distance & Scale ...............................................................................................91 3.4.11 Geology/Areology .............................................................................................94 3.5 Aesthetics: The Sublime Art of the Planetary Topics ............................................... 95 3.6 Coda: Scalar Derangement, Realism, and Cthulhu’s Cthulhu .............................. 100 4.0 “A series of interesting decisions”: The Combinatorial Topics of Civilization.............. 113 4.1 The Planetary Topics of Civilization ......................................................................... 118 4.2 Let’s Play: Civilization and its Discontents .............................................................. 122 4.2.1 The Narratological Critics ...............................................................................127 4.2.2 The Media Critics .............................................................................................135 4.3 Mediated Planetary Thinking ................................................................................... 139 4.3.1 Restart ...............................................................................................................140 4.3.2 Digital Pullback ................................................................................................144 4.3.3 Interface Informatics .......................................................................................151 4.4 “A series of interesting decisions” ............................................................................. 157 4.5 Anthropogenic Global Warming and the End of Civilization ................................ 164 4.5.1 Gathering Storm and the Planetary Topics of Climate Change ...................168 4.6 Civilization: Beyond Earth and the Mars Trilogy .................................................... 176 4.6.1 Gathering Storm and the Planetary Topics of Climate Change ...................177 4.6.2 From Barbarians to Aliens ..............................................................................180 4.6.3 From Tree to Web ............................................................................................182 4.6.4 Topicalized Affinities .......................................................................................184 vii 4.7 Synthetic and Combinatorial Speculative Radicalisms, or Reason and the Imagination for the “Good Anthropocene” ................................................................... 189 5.0 “You’ve Never Even Seen Mars”: The Planetary Topics against Archetypal Criticism..................................................................................................................................... 200 5.1 A Close Reading of Robert Zubrin’s A Case for Mars ............................................ 202 5.1.1 Zubrin’s Topical Invention .............................................................................204 5.1.2 Zubrin’s Frontier Archetype ..........................................................................208 5.1.3 Topics versus Archetypes and the “Just as” Structure ................................217 5.2 Critiques of Zubrin and his Frontier ........................................................................ 221 5.3 Archetypes and Left Melancholia ............................................................................. 226 6.0 Conclusion: “Meanwhile the rest of them could continue the work of making a decent civilization” .................................................................................................................... 233 6.1 Whither Materialism? ................................................................................................ 239 6.2 What is to be Done? ...................................................................................................
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